The cardboard bicycle - just the right amount of crazy

Israeli designer Giora Kariv had his mind pretty much blown when he heard about someone who created a cardboard canoe - and then he decided that he was going to make a cardboard bicycle...


The project might well have been scuppered if he'd listened to the engineers he consulted: they told him that it was impossible. But he couldn't let the concept just die in his mind - and his wife said that if he didn't at least try, he'd drive himself mad, then her, then his kids.


Good thing he listened:

"Impossible", huh?

The resulting bike is strong (the video below illustrates how strong), water-resistant, looks like it's made of plastic, and can carry riders up to 220kg (that's 485lbs!). And the production cost is just $9 - the cost to the consumer is estimated at $60-$90 depending on what parts are added on.


Take a look at this awesome bicycle in action:






Thank goodness there are people like this in the world, who are unwilling to give up in the face of being told their plans won't work!

Danceth thou ye Hokey-Pokey?

If thou art feeling jaded in thine efforts at merriment and carousing, mayhap thou couldst try capering hither and yon in ye new dance sensation, Ye Hokey-Pokey.


Knowest thou not ye means by which thou shouldst moveth thine body? Then, cast thine eyes upon ye parchment below, and verily, thou shalt be educated henceforth:

Now, Mark maketh no claim to be an all-encompassing expert on ye rituals and customs of ye British populace. That particular fact notwithstanding, Mark possesseth a suffiency of pedantry enabling him to point out that, in ye land of Ye Bard, ye dance is named Ye Hokey-Cokey.


With that said, ye sonnet above pleaseth both he and his good lady in equal measure!




Thy humble scribes at Sense Deprivation giveth thanks to BoingBoing, who in turn sourced this from Neatorama, who located it at Geeks Are Sexy, who saw it on Shakespeare Tonight's Facebook page.

Gamers: Protect your identity!

One of the almost inevitable downsides of online gaming - and Internet usage in general - is that the more you expose yourself to the Internet, the greater the chance that your information will be compromised. It's not an absolute dead certainty that you'll be at risk, but if you're a fan of popular online multiplayer games, then it's highly likely that there are hackers working on stealing member information.

OK, so he's sat in front of a computer, but you can almost hear that
"tip-toe" music they use in cartoons.

So what you can you do? Well, you'd be doing yourself a massive favor by heading across to GameSpy's article Trust No One: How To Protect Your Personal Info From Leaky Game Companies. Alex Castle's clear, comprehensive guide will arm you with some useful information to ensure that you stand a much better chance of keeping your personal data secret.

Oh, one thing that the article doesn't mention: the recommended password manager, Keepass, is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

(Image source: FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Bend your brain with Perspective

The students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology have a knack for turning out amazing, challenging games. Valve Software's a fan - they hired the creators of Narbacular Drop to turn their game into Portal, and pulled in the makers of Tag to join the dev team for Portal 2... What's more, when students release their projects, DigiPen makes them available as full, free and legal downloads.


Well, browsing through TheCHIVE resulted in coming across Perspective, a mind-blowing puzzler which combines 2D and 3D action. Like The Fourth Wall, another project by DigiPen students*, a click of a button changes the game mechanics. In The Fourth Wall, the screen is frozen to stop the level from scrolling and change it to a wrap-around system... if you don't get my drift, download the game for free and see for yourself. Anyway, in Perspective, a click changes the world from 3D to 2D, and back again...


Can't make a jump across a long pit of lava? Move in 3D until the pit looks small, change to 2D, and just jump across... Here, look, just watch this video and see what I'm blathering about:





As yet, the game isn't available for download, but for goodness' sake, bookmark the game page for when it is! The site presently says Fall 2012, so keep an eye out.


(Thanks to TheCHIVE for highlighting this one!)


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* Both projects, incidentally, have a common link: Logan Fieth.

Teachers Dancing Behind Students

We were linked to this video by our awesome friend jessartisan - the teaching faculty of Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School in Worcester, MA getting down and funky, during what appears to be the filming of a student documentary...

Our favorite is the bald-headed guy with the goatee - he really gets into it! Wish we had teachers like this at our schools when we were the kids' age...

An unusual way to survive the Zombie Apocalypse...

What with increased talk of the Zombie Apocalypse, we were very amused by Doghouse Diaries' take on how to stay safe:

At the very least, there's a video game in this...

The small size of the toilet aperture is a little unnerving, though... Maybe I'm over-thinking this.


Source: Doghouse Diaries
Found at: Nerd Approved

Most awesome marriage proposal EVAR?

The love-struck guy in this video wanted to propose to his girlfriend - which is fair enough. But how to propose in a way she'll remember? How about getting more than SIXTY friends and family members to lip-sync to Bruno Mars' I Think I Wanna Marry You?





Oh, and there's a nice little play on words: Mars' lyrics include "Or is it this dancing juice?" - watch out for what shows up at those moments in the song...


I know one thing: If you're going to put on a production this big, you'd better be damn sure she's gonna say "yes"...


Originally posted at The CHIVE.

Guinness' novel way to present a QR code

Guinness' advertising bods came up with an interesting way of getting their product talked about: pint glasses specially printed with a QR code...

When the glass is empty, the code's unreadable:

... and even if you fill it with (for example) beer, the code still can't be read:

But if you were to fill it with a dark fluid - Hey! What about filling it with GUINNESS? - then all becomes clear:

Then, provided you're still able to hold your smartphone up to the thing without bobbing and weaving all over the place, having the phone scan the QR code apparently results in status updates on Twitter, 4square, and Facebook - as well as downloading coupons, inviting your friends to join you, and even downloading exclusive Guinness content.

Of course, if you're having a sly one (or three) during your lunch hour, the last thing you'd want is for your drink to snitch on you...

Picture source: The Dieline

Where we found out about it: Boing Boing

3D printed chocolate brain... yummy!

Inition, a 3D-printing company based in the Shoreditch district of London, England, recently decided to have a little play with the MRI scan of a colleague's brain: They used the resulting data to create a chocolate replica!

Mmmmm.... brains.

What's more, they even went to the trouble of providing a how-to on the process, over at Instructables, together with a Creative Commons-released copy of the MRI scan in question, which is rather nice of them.

The Zombie Apocalypse probably just became more delicious.

(Side note: I was going to use "Brains are quite rich in cholesterol" as a headline, quoting Laura Shigihara's lyrics from the game Plants vs. Zombies, but it turns out that even milk chocolate doesn't actually have that much "bad" cholesterol, so that made a mess out of that idea.)

Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing out this awesomeness!

A functioning Portal turret gun!

A student at Penn State University decided, for the finals of his Advanced Mechatronics class, to build a fully-functioning turret gun from Portal - though this one only fires NERF bullets (not sure whether to be unhappy or relieved about that). He does say, in the video below, that he's still to create the proper shell for it, which is why it looks a little odd.

There's only one logical step up from this: GLaDOS. Just make sure to use NERF Neurotoxin, okay?

Thanks to Geeks Are Sexy for bringing this one to our attention!

Glass gem corn - too beautiful to eat?

Today I learned that there was such a thing as glass gem corn:

When I first saw the article on the subject, over at Boing Boing, I first thought that it was actual glass... I wouldn't want to eat the thing, it looks so damn beautiful!

A small amount of the seeds became available for sale, via the Seeds Trust, last August.

Doctor Who on floppy drives

Delia Derbyshire, the woman who made the iconic arrangement of Ron Grainger's theme tune to Doctor Who, would have been 75 this week. Her arrangement was the first work to be made with entirely electronic means, so it's perhaps appropriate that this tribute is also entirely electronic... albeit on floppy drives...

The Flavorwire article about Delia - one of many online articles which featured the above video - also linked to a short video showing Delia's creative process. Watch that clip, embedded below, and tell me she wasn't a badass at what she did:

Delia Derbyshire, we salute you!

TARDIS for sale or rent...

It's inevitable, when you have a talent contest, especially something like Britain's Got Talent, that there are going to be... unusual acts. For example, why haven't they buzzed off that snarky so-and-so who sits at the end of the panel each week?


Well, this is definitely unusual: Martyn Crofts appeared on BGT with a saucepan on his head, and - without any electronic wizardry - proceeded to parody "King of the Road" as a Dalek.

And, sure enough, that nasty man on the right-hand end of the desk still needs buzzing off...


Thanks to BoingBoing for sourcing that little nugget!

Post-apocalyptic bowling for charity!

There are many skills that you need in order to survive the Zombie Apocalypse: a strategic mindset; being handy with a shotgun; ten-pin bowling... Wut? Well, I guess it makes sense: You could knock down a few zombies and slow them down for a bit - plus those bowling balls are pretty damn heavy!


Anyway, in the latest round of The Nerdist's Celebrity All-Star Bowling, Chris Hardwick and his team of avid nerds take on the survivors of The Walking Dead's zombie horde: Lauren Cohan (Maggie), Scott Wilson (Hershel), Steven Yeun (Glenn), and Robert Kirkman (series creator and Executive Producer). The Nerdist team, in its various incarnations (the line-up changes weekly, except for Mr Hardwick), is undefeated - but will The Walking Dead's team put a stop to that?


Without wanting to give out any spoilers, I can tell you that the trash-talking, which is pretty rife in each show once the alcohol starts flowing, reaches new heights (or lows) in this particular episode...

If you like what you see, check out the other CASB videos at The Nerdist's YouTube channel... And next week, Geek & Sundry takes on The Nerdist! Oh no, talk about divided loyalties!

One simply must catch them all, what?

Our lovely friend Siobhan has quite the talent for drawing, and she's done an impressively dapper Pikachu:

That said, one is inclined to wonder just what happens to Pikachu when he's had too many glasses of bubbly, what?

Build Your Own Large Hadron Collider!

Why should those boffins over at CERN have all the fun in searching for the Higgs-Boson particle? Here are some IKEA-style instructions for making your own Large Hadron Collider!

As Maggie Koerth-Baker explains over at BoingBoing, this is (of course) a joke, and was plastered on one of the walls at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Oh, well... back to the drawing board...

Pics: The Space Shuttle Enterprise Arrives at JFK

A friend of a friend of a friend (sounds like a fish story, doesn't it?) works at JFK and took some pictures of the Space Shuttle Enterprise this past Friday as it came in, as well as some shots on the tarmac.

Enjoy!

You know what you can do with your tweets? (NSFW)

One of the authors of this blog (i.e. not the one typing this right now) just said, "Social media is a toilet". And nothing illustrates this better, perhaps, than the creation of Shitter, which takes a Twitter feed of your choosing, prints out the tweets onto four rolls of toilet paper, and then mails it to you.

The tagline for Shitter is "Social media has never been so disposable". Enough said, I think.


Original source: Laughing Squid.

Cutest Queen Cover EVAR

The CHIVE calls this a "parenting win". I'm inclined to agree... a dad and his three kids singing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in their car. Awesome.

Seattle Zombie Price-Break!

Attending the True Independent Film Festival in Seattle?

Are you a zombie?

Then get your tickets here for "A Little Bit Zombie",  put on your best brain covered outfit and have a great time! (In other words, dress as a zombie and get your tickets for 4 bucks.) Regular humans pay $8.00.

Boinghenge!

Artist Jeremy Deller has created a full-scale inflatable version of Stonehenge, which is presently on display at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Named Sacrilege, the inflatable installation is free for young and old alike to bounce around upon to their heart's content.

The piece is on display until May 7, after which it will go on tour through Britain, arriving in London in time for the Olympics. Just keep the javelins away from the thing, please!

Source: io9 - Thanks to @Red_Headed_Nerd for tweeting about this!

Set brain to stunned!

Thanks to the nice folks over at BoingBoing (one of my regular daily stops on the Interwebs), I saw this delightful creation: a working Star Trek phaser...

I think no more needs to be said, here... aside from I WANTS ONE.

War. War Never Changes.

I love the Fallout series, and courtesy of The CHIVE, here is your perfect desktop background!

Open your Vault Dweller's Survival Guide to page 1, please.

Can't you just feel yourself in the Vault right now, in your classroom ready to take the G.O.A.T.?  For the desktop appropriate size, and more excellent wallpapers, hit THIS.

One heck of an imagination!

This picture, found at The CHIVE, illustrates just how... imaginative some kids can be. For the love of all that is awesome, do not stifle this kind of imagination!

Source: The CHIVE

The book mules of Venezuela

Being able to read is a wonderful thing, but it's also something that many people take for granted, particularly when access to reading materials is so easy. Sure, there are mobile libraries for more rural areas, but what if you live somewhere that vehicles can't reach - like the foothills of the Andes in Venezuela?


Well, The University of Momboy is helping people in such remote communities with PROYECTO BIBLIOMULAS: using mules as bookmobiles. The hardy, stoic animals are able to navigate the treacherous terrain, and bring books to those people who had to do without. The project is proving to be a huge success, and both children and adults are feeling the benefit. In fact, Proyecto Bibliomulas is expanding, not only in terms of reach, but also in the types of services provided. The mules are being equipped with laptops and projectors, and there are plans to install wireless modems nearby, so the villagers will have Internet access.

One of the bibliomulas of the Andes, Venezuela.

It's reassuring to know that there are people who go the extra mile - and several hundred feet up - to reach out to those in need.


Sources: Boing Boing, BBC

Doctor Who's Sonic Screwdriver: Now a thing

Anyone who's a fan of the classic 1960s-2000s British sci-fi Doctor Who will know of the sonic screwdriver, a wondrous device capable of being anything from a lockpick to a Whovian equivalent of Star Trek's tricorder. It has served the Doctor (and presumably the other Gallifryeans - when they were still around) very well over his many incarnations.

And, of course, there have been countless fan-built - and commercially-built - replicas. But now, intrepid scientists* at Dundee University in the UK have created an ultrasound device - which, in the press release, they have actually called a sonic screwdriver - that uses a helical beam of ultrasound to turn objects.

Having a quick nose through the press release, I notice that the beam is made of up several helixes. If you've played Portal 2, the ultrasound beam would look probably look a bit like an Aperture Science Excursion Funnel - if you could see it.

The Aperture Science Excursion Funnel - what the sonic screwdriver beam might look like, if you could actually see the thing. (Picture credit: The Half-Life Wiki.)

But the boffins at Dundee Uni aren't doing it because they're fans of the show - this bad boy is a proof of concept which, the scientists say, could be applied to non-invasive ultrasound surgery, amongst other things.

I just hope the BBC doesn't sue for the use of the name. And... anyone building a TARDIS?


Story source: The Mary Sue, who got it from The Beat, who got it from the BBC. Now all we need is for another website to reference Sense Deprived as a source, and we're good to go!


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* I have to admit that I've never heard of scientists who aren't intrepid, although given infinite diversity in infinite combinations, they must exist...

Someone doesn't GET steampunk...

One thing that really turns our crank (pun intended) here at Sense Deprivation is steampunk, and one of our favourite all-things-steampunk sites is the excellent Xerposa. Today, they tweeted about an article by Ricky Lee concerning Turn Me On, by David Guetta featuring Nicki Minaj - although, oddly, the actual post is dated March 1. Anyway, Mr Lee does a highly impressive job of illustrating that, although the video for the song involves a lot of steampunk, whoever came up with the video's concept just doesn't get the culture. But rather than re-write Ricky's article here (and that rather defeats the object of this blog), I'll direct you instead to the article itself, as well as provide you with the video so you can see the thing before you read the biting critique.

LEGO Star Wars Organ

This is possibly one of the most amazing LEGO creations I've ever seen - and I've seen a few. As part of a German promotion for the 3D version of The Phantom Menace, a couple of professional LEGO builders (Builders of Sound) created a huge rotating drum featuring scenes from the movie. Oh, and that drum also happens to be linked to levers which play the Star Wars theme on an organ!

Of course, you can't get an idea of how it all works without a video, so here you go:

Thanks to Nerd Approved for bringing this to everyone's attention!

Fun-running + zombies = awesome

OK, so I'm not what you'd call a fit person, but this is an idea I could totally get behind... In the Philippines, organisers of a 5km race in the Laguna Province decided to spice things up by turning the race into a zombie-apocalypse chase!

I don't think the zombies in the chase were chained up, though. (Picture source: Reuters/Nacho  Doce)

You can find out more about the crazy race over at the original Reuters article.

All I Want Is Some SPACE, Man...

I don't know about you, but growing up, I thought when I hit this age (and I'm not telling, don't you know you shouldn't ask a lady her age?) that I would be living in a colony on the moon. Since the moon colony obviously hasn't happened, here are three places to help you (and me) get our space fixes.

1.   Kerbal Space Program: A game/space program simulator that allows you to assemble your own ships, attempt missions, and fly to the Mun (yes, MUN) and back. A work in progress, but cheap at 15 bucks.

Of course, watching the failures is also great fun.

2.   Orbiter Space Flight Simulator: Realistic and TOUGH, fly the space shuttle and rendezvous with the space station, perform Apollo and other historic missions, build your own craft. HOURS of fun here...and free!

3.   The Stardome: Courtesy of astronomy.com, the Stardome lets you explore the night sky that you can see from your actual location. This one is also at the bargain price of...well, FREE. Make sure you have the latest and greatest version of Java installed in order to use the Stardome.

ClydeFrog's Deviant Art

If you like the fractal we're using as a background, Twitter avatar, G+ profile and Facebook page, make sure and check here for more!

"Tunnels of Birds", ClydeFrog, 2006

ClydeFrog is my go-to person for fractals-his artwork graces my desktop and screensaver, and his newest pieces are done in Mandelbulb, which I'm going to be trying out myself as soon as my desktop is assembled.

"Heart of the Mothership", ClydeFrog, 2012

Thanks to ClydeFrog for allowing us the use of his lovely artwork!

Ain't that the truth...

(Source: https://plus.google.com/100801061924982065053/posts/K7Dts5zuuoD)

Welcome to Sense Deprivation!

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome to Sense Deprivation - the place where the Internet's best, weirdest, grossest and cutest all rubs elbows, bang heads and touch each other in places where one shouldn't be touched. If we find it interesting - and our interests are pretty damn eclectic - there's a good chance that it'll end up being listed here, for your entertainment (and, of course, ours).

Who's this "we" of which you speak?

The "we" in question are:

• Kristal Crow, a lifetime nerd, gamer and self-styled Evil Genius who’s into science (especially Mad Science), steampunk, animals, music of almost every genre, and battle-yodelling. Kristal also writes a blog at The Crow and the Pitcher, and recently became addicted to Nutella.
• Mark Cooper, who for some reason feels the need to point out that he’s British. Mark likes many of the same things that Kristal does, as well as dice collecting, cookery, and abortive attempts at writing long-form fiction (the latter drives Kristal nuts). In addition to being a blogger (The Minecraft Scribe and The Digital Quill), his most nefarious act to date was introducing Kristal to the seductive lure of Nutella.

Oh. We both hate spiders.

How did Sense Deprivation come about?

We both have a passion for the Internet, and the weird and wonderful things which abound in its billions of web pages. Hardly a day goes by without one of us finding something which tickles our fancy, and we just have to pass it on to the other one. Kristal, however, was getting a little sick and tired of Mark ninja-tweeting stuff she’d found. But rather than take the obvious route of electrifying Mark’s chair and controlling the shocks through the Internet, we made a less painful compromise: a shared account whereby either one of us could post the stuff we found. Kristal’s keeping chair-electrification as a backup idea, though.

As for the name... Well, we often chat about this, that and the other, and one night, we were talking about Richard Feynman and his experiences with sensory deprivation. From there, we got to riffing, and ended up with the name Sense Deprivation (although Mark keeps typing it as Derpivation). {Most people that know us think we've been deprived of all sense in the first place. -K} Pick up the inspiration, physicist Richard Feynman's book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” here.

How can you get hold of us?

If you have a problem, and no one else will help, maybe you can hire -- no, wait, that’s not it. You can find Sense Deprivation at the usual social-media hangouts:

Twitter: @SenseDeprived (“SenseDeprivation” is one character too long!)
Blogger: http://sensedeprivation.blogspot.com
Google+: Sense Deprivation
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sense-Deprivation/391759657511125
Email: You can also reach us via our GMail.com email address - just stick “sensedeprivation” before the @ sign, and you’re good to go :)